DavidScubadiver said: We won't know that for some time yet. Plenty of people have walked away rich from the stock market. The end may never come, in which case plenty more will do just fine. I am banking on it myself.

I'm not saying money can't be made, because it can be(obviously only by the minority due to nature of the pyramid), but people should just understand the game and what they are getting into, just so everybody is on the same page. Getting into the market you are buying into a Ponzi pyramid scheme and somebody gonna buy the top at some point and yes when everybody gets out your stock can and will go to zero. Be aware and be warned, even when informed.

Them twinkies might be a better investment then some stocks LOL. Boxes are fleabayed at $20 each. In few weeks when twinkie addicts can't find them in the stores no more they might triple, quadruple... who knows how high they will go, the twinkie craze is on!!!!

In other news Twinkies and Ding Dongs are appearing all over eBay, I guess for fun and profit like Boo Berry

Twinkies gonna be collector items, buy 'em while they are cheap!!!!! Last pack of twinkies gonna be worth a fortune even past expiration date, LOL

Not so fast. There is always bailout possibility. Many of their customers are too big to fail.How many twinkies can the average 400lb+ person eat in a day? I'm sure a lot. Supply gonna get low very fast, until most are gone and rest sell for $1000 a piece LOL

Too big to fail!!!!!! LOL, you got me there, oh boy hahaha.... good one.Bad part is, many of the too big to fail customers are quickly approaching their expiration date.

Does Obama eat twinkies? Maybe he will write a personal check for the bailout?

luckytbal said: Not so fast. There is always bailout possibility. Many of their customers are too big to fail.

More like BCTGM and IBT are too big to fail.

If a bailout comes for Hostess it certainly won't be for the benefit of the morbidly obese Honey Boo Boo crowd who couldn't taste the difference between a Twinkee and a Cloud Cake if their life depended on it.

WallStreetPirate said: DavidScubadiver said: Someone will buy the rights to make twinkies and the golden delicious cakes will always be available. Still, stocking up on them is a good idea. I hear they don't go bad.

They are dipped in formaldehyde preservative or what?

I think they will just make em in china like everything else, why not, cheaper and no unions, and human robots can make them 24/7!!! Capitalism at its finest.

WallStreetPirate said: DavidScubadiver said: We won't know that for some time yet. Plenty of people have walked away rich from the stock market. The end may never come, in which case plenty more will do just fine. I am banking on it myself.

I'm not saying money can't be made, because it can be(obviously only by the minority due to nature of the pyramid), but people should just understand the game and what they are getting into, just so everybody is on the same page. Getting into the market you are buying into a Ponzi pyramid scheme and somebody gonna buy the top at some point and yes when everybody gets out your stock can and will go to zero. Be aware and be warned, even when informed.

In other news Twinkies and Ding Dongs are appearing all over eBay, I guess for fun and profit like Boo Berrydelay delay delay.... f---kkk... all i wanted for a flat out approval or denial. I think denial is coming but that's actually great because it creates a bottom to which the both the Madoff analysts and retail bagholders can agree on. At the end of the day (or year rather), NCE is largely irrelevant, maybe a buck (or two) in final offer price (if that); but this uncertainty has certainly caused a fiasco.

colebert said: When AAPL is down: "I'm already down a lot today and Kantscholar says puts are too expensive anyway."When AAPL is up: "I'm already down a lot and we've finally found the generational bottom anyway."

Sigh. Okay, I'll take the bait.

The way you're buying options, you're just using it as a poor man's leverage. As I've posted many times, I'm usually a seller of puts or calls. I'll buy them only when the volatility is low and I want to hedge positions that I already have on. It's a really simple strategy. I have no desire to buy options when the volatility spikes. I really don't care if some of the time you make money. Great. More often than not you lose money. I really don't think you have any understanding of how options are priced.

Perhaps an analogy would be helpful. Think of the market like a casino, and, over the short-term, it's really just chance whether any particular stock goes up or down (this statement may be true over the long-term as well, but let's ignore that). Wouldn't you rather be the one dealing the cards? That is, selling those positions that expire at a fixed point in the future? You have two ways to win: the underlying stock moves in the opposite direction or it doesn't move at all. The only way you lose is if it not only moves in the "wrong" direction for you, but moves fast enough. Sure, you'll lose some, but you'll win far more than you lose. Perhaps you should reconsider your strategy?

Let's look at some history. In 2012, I have made a grand total of 11 trades and all of these trades were posted to this board immediately after I made them. Those posts have not been edited. I also posted when I exited those trades at the moment when I exited them. Those posts have not been edited. All 11 trades were winners. Some were only marginal winners, but they all were winners. I scanned back over the trades I posted through the back half of 2011 (I went all the way back to those CSCO trades in July) and all of those were winners. Seriously. Go look. Every single complete trade I have posted here since July 2011 has been a winner. All of these trades (with the exception of the CGIX flip that DS alerted the board to--thanks again, DS, for that one) followed the same strategy. And, again, they were all winners.

You can post all of the silly graphics you want and go ahead and red posts or whatever, but people reading these threads should know who the ones are who have a track record of making winning moves consistently. Anyone can get something right around 50% of the time when you're flipping a coin. But the guys batting 70, 80, 90+%, they are the ones that people should be listening to. Based on their track record, it is clear that they are doing something right. Folks like DS and JD2010, for example.

The purpose of this thread is to discuss investing ideas for the purpose of making money. But this thread is also democratic in that anyone is allowed to post whatever he wants and anyone can "rate" posts using our rudimentary rating system. One of the problems with democracy is that we seem to think that the person who speaks the loudest or speaks most often actually knows something and is worth listening to. So we give equal weight to your voice/rating and the voice/rating of someone who actually knows something. That's unfortunate. It's also dangerous for anyone looking to this thread and hoping to learn something, but not knowing who possess knowledge and who is a clown.

One of the (many) problems I have with your contributions to this thread is that taken in a vaccum each one of your posts can seem reasonable and maybe even wise. But people who actually pay attention, see past your "scholarly" facade, and actually hold you accoutable for what you say (e.g., fatwalleter) over the history of this thread know you are usually some combination of full of sh*t, contradictory, and sneakily unprofound (among other things.)

To most people's credit they just ignore/tolerate you (and me) while extracting whatever combination of educational and entertainment value they want from the thread. Everyone is here for their own reasons and have their own priorities. From what I can tell, you are here to hold court and spout off. Fine. Knock yourself out. But you won't be doing it unchallenged or control the discourse like it's your classroom & we're your students.

overall, today was a loss, but you know; I'm really starting to get a kick out of Apple on OPEX; so much dough to be had for the brass balls investor, and frankly, once you start to articulate max pain; it's pretty easy to know your exit, it's just finding the right entrance. she will bounce off that 'big' strike time and time again; like clockwork today. i think i'm going to put down 5k next time... posting my trade ahead of time next. maybe get a aapl pot luck going on in here!

kantscholar said: I'm usually a seller of puts or calls. I'll buy them only when the volatility is low and I want to hedge positions that I already have on. you don't say kant?! I like to buy stocks only when they go up and I want to sell when they reverse trend. I prefer this methodology so as to make money... haha! :p

Realized gains should be much better but I have a bad track record of not converting unrealized gain.

DMND call options were 3 baggers before they disintegrated into a puff of greedy dust (8k up to 3k down)DNDN call options were instantly two baggers but are now about $500 underwater ATM (5k up to $500 down)FB put options I lost 2k on were also two baggers before I sold for 2k loss.VXX call options go up and down but I could have walked away up 1k at one point now down 3k.

Only my AAPL 2Q earning calls went against me from the outset. Every other play had at least one clear and present opportunity to walk away with significant gains. I've been playing homerun derby, just not the way Kant means it.

Risk management and fear/greed balancing need improvement. Also, I probably shouldn't even be doing this at all.

It was really a poor and expensive move from my side. Sold 200 shares @510 after watching it dip below $506. It bounced back to $530 within an hour. The stock has been dropping $15-$20 every day. I thought I'd rebuy it when it goes below $500. But I know it won't, now it will keep going up till I buy it again.

colebert said: Realized gains should be much better but I have a bad track record of not converting unrealized gain.

DMND call options were 3 baggers before they disintegrated into a puff of greedy dust (8k up to 3k down)DNDN call options were instantly two baggers but are now about $500 underwater ATM (5k up to $500 down)FB put options I lost 2k on were also two baggers before I sold for 2k loss.VXX call options go up and down but I could have walked away up 1k at one point now down 3k.

Only my AAPL 2Q earning calls went against me from the outset. Every other play had at least one clear and present opportunity to walk away with significant gains. I've been playing homerun derby, just not the way Kant means it.

Risk management and fear/greed balancing need improvement. Also, I probably shouldn't even be doing this at all.

I had 1,200 JCP shares shorted around $26 and got out with probably 1% gain last month. Now it is trading around $16. I was holding SHLD short till Wednesday close before closing it at $61, now stock is trading at $46.xx GRPN, RSH, AMD and few others, I got in great short positions few months ago, If I had just kept those short instead of monkeying around AAPL, I would have been in much better shape.

Timing is the hardest thing in stock market. Most of us know the right shares to buy/short but are not able to time well.

colebert said: Realized gains should be much better but I have a bad track record of not converting unrealized gain.

DMND call options were 3 baggers before they disintegrated into a puff of greedy dust (8k up to 3k down)DNDN call options were instantly two baggers but are now about $500 underwater ATM (5k up to $500 down)FB put options I lost 2k on were also two baggers before I sold for 2k loss.VXX call options go up and down but I could have walked away up 1k at one point now down 3k.

Only my AAPL 2Q earning calls went against me from the outset. Every other play had at least one clear and present opportunity to walk away with significant gains. I've been playing homerun derby, just not the way Kant means it.

Risk management and fear/greed balancing need improvement. Also, I probably shouldn't even be doing this at all.

umcsom said: colebert said: Realized gains should be much better but I have a bad track record of not converting unrealized gain.

DMND call options were 3 baggers before they disintegrated into a puff of greedy dust (8k up to 3k down)DNDN call options were instantly two baggers but are now about $500 underwater ATM (5k up to $500 down)FB put options I lost 2k on were also two baggers before I sold for 2k loss.VXX call options go up and down but I could have walked away up 1k at one point now down 3k.

Only my AAPL 2Q earning calls went against me from the outset. Every other play had at least one clear and present opportunity to walk away with significant gains. I've been playing homerun derby, just not the way Kant means it.

Risk management and fear/greed balancing need improvement. Also, I probably shouldn't even be doing this at all.

sounds like me

I second that. Worst part is admitting being wrong on a stock and riding it down after being up and not selling for a profit. I think keeping in mind that it is a pyramid situation and a hot potatoe tossing game it becomes more clear that profits are golden and despite greed just simply have to be taken when they are there, while losses need to have a quick exit. I'm still having a lot of problems working through this, but starting to improve somewhat. I think people just don't like to be wrong, so keep holding the losers. Also, many of us, me included are not too patient and expect things to happen in minutes, hours, or days, instead of weeks and months. I lost count of how many times I was right on a stock, then lost patience and dumped it at a loss at the worst possible moment and few months later could have had a better than 100% profit from entry. I think key is setting entry prices regardless of what MM's quote and only getting in at that time. Also, setting hard and fast absolute rules on exit loss level and exit profit level before even making a buy. Hard part is, with all the market manipulation and swings these entry/exit levels may get hit briefly then completely reverse, so stop loss or stops to take profits are becoming increasingly useless. It's a tough game out there now I think for retail players with all the hokey pokey going on in the market. But, I'mlearning too and from what I see it has to be a bit longer time horizon with the trades. Forget weeks and think months at the minimum. The short term stuff is much more easy to manipulate I think and this is where things defy any logic or stop making sense, because of the manipulations. Longer term swing trades is where the real opportunity is, IMO. I'm starting to move more into 3mo+ time horizon, and those trades have a much better win/loss ratio than the short term crap.

kantscholar said: An aside. Take a look at the chart of MDBX. And you Apple holders thought you were having a interesting week.pink sheet manipulated pump and dump crap. I bet if you look hard enough(I don't) these penny pink sheet crap stocks are up and down few hundred % on a daily basis. With such low volumes a 5yr old kid can move the stock 100% in 5min with a $200 brokerage acct. Hard to be seriously comparing the pink crap to AAPL, and while I understand what you are trying to show, it's not an orange to orange comparison.

ubermichaelthomas said: This thread is lonely on the weekends. Everyone ready for tomorrow? It's going to be quite a show considering the big news.Martha Stewart was found guilty of insider trading? Taco Cabana added a new sauce to the salsa bar? You have us all in suspense sir.

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